


Diu vi Salvi Regina/YNWA

by TheOriginalGids



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:31:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalGids/pseuds/TheOriginalGids





	Diu vi Salvi Regina/YNWA

  
**_March 2012_ **   


"I'm going to the Furiani 20th anniversary commemoration," announced Andy over breakfast one morning.

Yvette let the spoon she had lifted halfway to her mouth fall back into the bowl of cornflakes, whilst even Ed stopped mid-munch of a bacon rasher.

As ever, it was Ed who broke the silence. "Furiani? Where the fuck's that?"

"Bastia," amplified Andy. Seeing two sets of eyes remain confused, "Corsica." He sighed, "part of _France_ , OK?"

"What the hell d'you want to go there for?"

"What kind of commemoration?" enquired Yvette, slightly more gently, as she could see that the two men were gearing up for some kind of fight and it was not yet seven in the morning and no beer had been consumed. These were always the unprettiest sorts of fight.

Andy looked defiant, if somewhat sheepish. Ed knew that look; it was the look that he always got in his eyes when people started teasing him about Hillsborough. If they started _goading_ him about it, however, that was when the steel would come into his eyes and the sparks would start to fly.

"Football," sighed Ed. "I should have guessed. It's always football with you, isn't it, if you're off on one of your crusades. What happened in this Furiani place, then?"

Andy, hurt, said, "I care about the NHS. I care about injustice. I care about righting everything that's wrong in the world, even if I can only change a few lives."

"Yeah, yeah, regular saint, where's your halo then?"

"Got out of bed the wrong side of bed this morning, did we?"

"Boys." It was rare for Yvette to have to deal with both Ed _and_ Andy in bad moods at the same time, but clearly now was one of those times. "Ed, stop digging. Andy," more gently, for he looked as if he was about to cry, even if he would swear that it was just that his hayfever was starting even earlier than normal this year if challenged on the subject, which Ed in his current mood probably _would_ , "we're sorry. We'd like to hear what happened in Furiani,really we would."

  
.oOo.  


Andy looked at Ed, as if just _daring_ him to say anything.

As the other man kept silent, Andy relented. "It was just a generalised clusterfuck, OK? Bastia had got through to the French equivalent of the FA cup semi-final, and were drawn at home against Marseille. There's a lot of Corsicans in Marseille, and it's close to Bastia, so there's quite a rivalry. Least, there was then. That was before all the OM bribery scandal and relegation, and Bastia just becoming crap for a while." He brightened, briefly. "Although they're good again now, should get promoted back into Ligue 1 this year. Might stay on a bit and try and catch their last home game against Nantes."

Ed sighed. No doubt Andy had an equally encyclopædiac knowledge of every other country's football doings as he did of England's: brought about, no doubt, by teenage years misspent poring assiduously over issues of _World Soccer_.

Andy looked at him askance, before continuing, " _Anyways_ the Furiani stadium — there's some posh French name for it but I forget what it is and couldn't pronounce it proper-like even if I could — was falling down and massively under-equipped for the vast numbers expected at the match. So they replaced an old stand that could hold between 750 and 800 people with a new temporary one, holding 10000 — yeah, ten fucking thousand, you heard that right — just to cash in on this match."

"Trouble was, they only had forty-eight hours left to build it when they decided on this plan, and they were still at it the day of the match, the 5th of May 1992 it was. There were clunkies at work even as people poured into the stadium, as there'd been reports it looked well dodgy. Then people up the top started stamping their feet, some sort of resonance effect," he waved his hands in a vague approximation of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, "got set up, and the whole cunting shebang collapsed like a house of cards. People were jumping from way up there just to get out, while the players tried to get rid of the wire enclosures." He shuddered, memories of Hillsborough keen. "Anyway, the upshot was 18 dead, between 2000 and 3000 injured. Looked like a bloody refugee camp."

"And the worst of it, you wanna know what the sodding worst of it was?" Andy's voice rose in both volume and Scouseness with indignation, "The bastards that ordered this, that tried to profit and ended up killing and maiming people, _them bastards_ , they only got a few months in the clink, if that."

  
.oOo.  


Ed considered, then snorted. "That'd be a great epitaph for someone, wouldn't it. 'Killed because some stupid fuckers got greedy and didn't think'. Mind," he continued more slowly, "sounds rather like something the Tories'd do."

Andy glared at him, both barrels.

"OK, OK," Ed put up his hands, as if to ward off a blow. "I'm not funny. As everyone keeps telling me."

Yvette gave him a playful clout round the ear; Andy continued to glare, while saying mutinously, "Well, I'm going anyway. And don't think you can talk me out of it, cos you can't."

He stood up, still fucking furious, and left the room.

"What the hell was that all about?" asked Ed, a look of bewilderment crossing his face.

"Dunno, really. Just Andy being Andy," shrugged Yvette. "But I think we're best off leaving him to it. Unless?"

"What?"

"Do you think he might need us — _you_? You know what he gets like when there's anything to do with Hillsborough. I know this isn't Hillsborough, but it's probably going to affect him similarly, bring up all the same sorts of bad memories."

Ed still hadn't forgiven Andy. "If Andy wants to go jaunting off to Frog-land, to play bleeding-heart over some disaster he wasn't involved in, then that's his look-out. Fuck him."

Yvette shrugged. Pity. She'd quite fancied a week by the Med in early May before it started to get too hot.

Ed looked at her, suddenly uncertain, having remembered something important. "May 5th's Cup Final day. He'd really go to this rather than being at Wembley?"

"You imagine Everton'll be in the final then?"

"Point. Not really. _He_ does though. 'Snot like him to have given up this early."

  
.oOo.  


Going upstairs, she found Andy sitting, morose, duvet round him, in _his_ room, tapping away furiously at his laptop. Not a good sign. Andy only retreated back there, rather than lolling in their super-kingsize, when he was mortally offended. Ed _had_ been rather brutally offensive, though. She sighed, and sat gingerly on the edge of Andy's bed.

Andy carried on stabbing away at the keyboard and mouse for another minute before, finally, slamming the lid shut, swearing, and then looking up.

He defrosted slightly, abashed. "Oh, it's you. Not him."

Yvette moved gingerly closer. Andy's face was flushed, always a sign that he wanted to cry, but couldn't allow himself to, ever, in front of Ed.

He inched towards her, too, sighing. "Just tried to order myself an SC Bastia scarf to wear over my Everton shirt. But they won't deliver outside France. How crap's that?"

"You don't have to do this, you know."  
"Don't have to do _what_?" Defensive Andy at his worst.

"Keep up a brave front for me. I know how much it would mean to you for Ed to care, like you do. But it's just not him. You might be best mates, but you don't get what makes each other tick, not really."

"And you do?"

Yvette sighed theatrically. "How on earth did I manage to end up saddling myself with two sodding alpha males, who love each other, but will _never_ bloody admit it?"

Andy smiled, wanly, before giving her a wicked glance. "I'd just love a dirty weekend away, somewhere we didn't need to give a toss what people think. But this," he bit his lip, "this isn't the time or the place for it. This is something I _need_ to do."

"Alone?"

"Ed doesn't understand."

Yvette hesitated, before broaching what was becoming an increasing source of household tension. "He's ... disappointed. He doesn't understand your need to lavish all your attention on your lame ducks and special snowflakes, and just coming home spent to us. He wants quality time, too." She added quietly, "So do I."

"But he isn't — you both aren't — on the verge of being made homeless, unable to read or write, are you? You've not got cancer and unable to convince someone to give you the drugs you need. You're not an old lady living alone, whose family have abandoned her, sinking into an Alzheimerish confusion and who can't understand how to apply for the benefits she needs. You're OK, you're strong, you're intelligent." Andy's eyes burned with his trademark missionary zeal.

"A bit more balance is all Ed wants. He cooks, and you don't eat, you're so intent on saving the world. Politics doesn't have to be method acting. If you get yourself so worked up you can't eat, what good will that ever do anyone?"

"I don't want anyone _ever_ to have ammunition to call me a hypocrite," he whispered fiercely, afraid to speak any louder else he'd shout. "Now, if you don't mind?" He stood up, and ushered her quietly but firmly out of the room, before shutting the door.

  
**_April 2012_ **   


On the surface, things were the same as they always had been. Ed certainly couldn't detect the minute extra frostiness in the atmosphere that Yvette kept telling him was there. The only difference — and it was a good one, as far as Ed could tell — was that Andy always turned up at dinnertime, ate everything placed in front of him, before retiring to be on his own for a while, before joining him and Yvette a bit later.

It had been Lent, then Holy Week, then Easter. Andy always went a bit weird round this time. There'd been the year he'd committed to celibacy ... no, Ed didn't much feel like remembering that. It had felt like _he_ had been the one cast into the wilderness: fasting, _drowning_ , without Andy's love.

Yvette was more worried.

"It _will_ be OK, won't it?" she kept asking Andy, unreassured at all by his bright assertions that nothing was wrong. She knew there was. But Andy wouldn't talk; and Ed wouldn't listen. She spent many nights, sleepless, worrying that it was all falling down around them. She knew, as only a wife could, that Andy was Ed's cornerstone; that, without him, Ed would dissolve into an appalling undignified drunken brawling mess. And she couldn't bear it were that to happen.

On the 14th, Everton lost the semi-final. That tortured impossible choice wasn't one that Andy would have to face. He sold his cup final ticket to the most friendly person he could find on Twitter and headed off to Anfield for the 23rd anniversary the following day.

On the 22nd, Hollande just about managed to win the first round of the French election. There were many mutterings in shady bars throughout the _Île de Beauté_ that night and through the days to come, where one in four of an increasingly disaffected electorate — mainly Corsican nationalists — had rather surprisingly voted for Marine Le Pen, and Hollande had come a dismal third.

  
**_3 May 2012_ **   


Andy, his bag having already been packed for three days, was champing at the bit and eager to be off. Tiresomely, there were no direct flights to Bastia apart from at unGodly hours on Sundays when he should be at Mass; so it was early Eurostar to Paris Nord; RER B to Orly; then landing at Bastia Poretta mid-afternoon, in plenty of time to buy an SC Bastia scarf before the shops shut.

He kissed Yvette, and then Ed, more perfunctorily, before hoisting his bags and leaving.

"Fuck," said Ed, heavily. "Why do I have this weird feeling that I ought to have gone with him?"

"It's not too late. Call him, and get him to change the room."

"He doesn't want me there."

"You know what he'd call you? 'A stubborn daft-headed lunk'. So get your lunkish brain into gear and _sort it_." But Ed didn't, just as Yvette had always known he wouldn't.

  
.oOo.  


It was a step into a world unknown and yet strangely familiar. Bastia was the Liverpool of Corsica — indeed, maybe of the whole of France: only Marseille having ever been the other serious contender for the title.

There was heavy industry! There were terribly slow local trains stopping at every left lamp-post, with rolling stock that made even _Merseyrail_ look modern! It was a port, with port manners, port smells, port customs, and port accents.

As Andy looked around, he wondered whether it might even explain his sad dark eyes and his long eyelashes. 'A girl in every port,' indeed. _Everyone_ looked like him, here, only more so.

As the train creaked and groaned its way into Bastia, Andy squinted at the map he'd printed off from the hotel's website. It was a short walk port-wards from the station, through the impressive main square with its statue of Corsica's most famous embarrassment, Napoléon Bonaparte. Despite the mediocre, often verging on negative, reviews on the TripAdvisor website, Andy had somehow had an inkling that he would get more of the essence of Bastia by booking into the somewhat down-at-heel Posta Vecchia than into the sleek swish Best Western up the hill, where there was nary a restaurant in sight. Not to mention feeling more within his comfort zone.

The room was meagre, poorly decorated, but more than adequate for a couple of nights. It was, after all, far better than student rooms at Fitz had been in the early '90s, coming with an _en suite_ as it did. Kicking his shoes off, Andy laid his head down on the elongated French pillow and pulled the duvet over him for a brief kip.

Waking suddenly, disorientated, he realised that the terrible noise was, in fact, the stentorian fog-horn of an arriving ferry. Bright Mediterranean light bathed the bed, highlighting the shutters and casting shadows across the room, and Andy felt, for the first time in many weeks, at peace. Free from all constraints, all pressures. Free from having to bend this way and that trying to achieve the impossible. Free, at last, to be himself.

Sensing that the mercury had risen whilst he'd napped, he changed quickly into T-shirt and shorts. There was no-one here to nip at his heels and tell him what an ongoing fashion disaster he was, so he even felt able to strap on a pair of sandals to give his battered toes some fresh air. He packed a lightweight jacket into his day-sack, just in case, and then headed out, determined to do a bit of sightseeing before dinner. Several restaurants along the main sea-front drag had already attracted him; it was just a question of picking the one. 

But for now, the shops were open, still, for the evening, so he retraced his way through the main square, where Hollande had breakfasted wth local dignataries on the Feast of the Annunciation, and towards the shops. He still wanted his SC Bastia scarf; he was determined to show his solidarity. Temporarily distracted, he noted the rates in a local Europcar office so he could spend the next day before the commemoration travelling round the local areas, maybe even as far as round the Cap Corse.

He didn't, _ever_ , get the chance to travel purely for pleasure on his own these days; either it was for business, or he had Ed dragging him down and needling him and Yvette playing peacemaker. This couldn't go on, he thought.

As a result of that impetuous urge, he walked into the Europcar office and hired a car for the following day. He distinctly felt like this could be a watershed experience.

Having done so, he stammered out in Scouse-tinged schoolboy French an enquiry as to where he could buy an SC Bastia scarf. Confusion turned to amusement on everyone's faces, and they almost patted him on the head whilst telling him how much they adored his accent, before informing him in broken English that he had no chance of following where he needed to go. Indeed, attempting as best he could to follow these directions, he found himself stood directly facing a brothel to his left and a gun-shop to his right.

What the hell? For once he wasn't the Rt Hon Andrew Burnham, MP, but Andy Burnham, a simple Scouser, on holiday. Regretfully he turned away from both; but wandering the streets reminded him suddenly of how life _could_ have been, had he not felt that changing the world was his vocation; that making people's lives better was what God had called him to do. He could never have been a priest, celibacy not being amongst the talents God had bestowed upon him; but as a left-wing MP he had hoped that he could do at least as much good. Things didn't seem to be turning out like that lately, though. Everything, both political and personal, no longer looked anywhere near so rosy.

He entertained a fantasy of just vanishing, of taking up a job as a simple viney  
ard labourer, and playing football for the local team of a weekend. It seemed awfully appealing. Finding himself idly picking up a newspaper advertising situations vacant and flats to rent, he realised he might actually be more serious about this than he had imagined. Ed and Yvette could cope without him, he rationalised; they had before him, and they would after him. The Shadow Cabinet, too, could survive.

  
.oOo.  


Back in England, meanwhile, Ed was missing Andy. Yvette watched, shrewdly, as Ed stormed round the house like a bear with a sore head, knowing that the best way to get him to come to his senses was to say nothing but to let him get his anger out of his system by himself.

Sure enough, an hour or so later he came to Yvette, remorsefully, and said, "I've been a bloody idiot, haven't I?"

Yvette refrained from comment, merely inclining her head slightly.

"D'ya think it's too late?"

"Ceremony's not till Saturday. It's Thursday evening now. I'm sure it's not beyond us to figure a way to get you there in time." She hesitated, before continuing, "Would you like me to come too?"

Ed tried to avoid her eyes. "Not sure. Not sure if it's what Andy wants."

Yvette took his chin in her hands, and turned his reluctant face towards her. "Go. Alone, if it's what you think best. But I'd like to be close by, just in case."

"In case what?"

"Dunno. Just in case. I think you feel it too."

Ed couldn't allow himself to admit that he did indeed feel the same superstitious walking over the grave feeling.

"Let's go look at flights, then?" he said, grudgingly. Yvette hugged him, briefly, before dragging out two matching suitcases from the loft.

"Hey!" he called up to her. "Think I've found some good deals."

Yvette groaned silently. Ed's 'good deals' were rarely such, and often involved changing planes in Finland just to go to Paris.

  
.oOo.  


Having finally, in the nick of time, found a shop selling a Bastia scarf — Andy had found himself admiring the kit, blue and white as it was — he puttered his way slowly back towards the restaurants he'd spotted earlier. He was in no hurry, and this was a city with a more relaxed tempo. Maybe he could even fit in here, one day.

A warm and friendly elderly lady — who reminded him of many of his constituents — greeted him as he returned to the sea-front, ushering him to an outside table. The bewildering variety of menus, and of untasted foods in a somewhat exotic language, made him blink a few times, before he thought, _When in Corsica ...._ Fish soup or _charcuterie corse_? Sea-bass or _civet du sanglier_? _Fiadone_ or ewes' cheese with fig jam? Everything appealed. Andy reminded himself that he had several days to try things, so went with his first inclinations, along with a decent-sized carafe of Patrimonio.

Everything surpassed, magnificently, his expectations. He'd never before had afish soup that came with instructions, but he had to admit that it was probably for the best, as otherwise he'd have ignored half of it and the flavours offset each other in a way that Ed, Andy thought with a faint pang, would have waxed lyrical about.

The sea-bass, too, was fantastic; a special Eastern Mediterranean form that never escaped those shores. Served with fennel and chipped potatoes, it was sublime.

Staggering home _after_ the _tarte_ , and a local _digestif_ , and a sojourn through the local bars round the nearby harbour, with Corsican polyphony resonating from every rafter and the fortunes of the _turchini_ the first thing on everyone's lips, he thought that this place was just perfect. _Just bloody perfect_ , as he declared emphatically to every bemused early-season tourist he passed on the way back to the hotel.

Eventually, sozzled, after various mishaps and fumblings with his key, he collapsed, still clothed, into the narrow bed, having studiously ignored the frowns and murmured whispers of _les anglais!_ from the _concierge_.

  
**_4 May 2012_ **   


d and Yvette were up bright and early, having hastily assembled a makeshift travel wardrobe overnight, and on their way to City airport, for an early morning flight to Orly. After twiddling their thumbs for a couple of hours in the rather sterile airport concourse, they were finally airbound again on their way to Bastia.

It was only after they'd collected their luggage and hired a car and had staggered, blinking, into the Mediterranean sunshine that they realised that they had no idea where Andy was meant to be staying nor any idea of how to find him. Somewhat sheepishly, Yvette returned inside the airport and went to the information desk to enquire about a list of hotels.

The lady was friendly and polite, if somewhat deficient in English, and suggested to them that they would probably be most comfortable in the Best Western Bastia Centre. Ed looked dubious: it didn't quite sound like Andy's style, somehow, but it was true that they needed somewhere to stay, and from there they could ring round all the other hotels and hope that the Corsican application of the French equivalent of the Data Protection Act would be laxly applied.

Having collected the hire car and driven up the coast into the centre of Bastia, Ed decided it was time for a late lunch prior to checking into the hotel. He'd had experience of such hotels before, and had found the standard of cuisine left something to be desired and available only at unpredictable hours.

So the centre of Bastia seemed like a more enticing prospect, at least for a snack of some sort. Cursing the weird and wacky parking arrangements that led to people leaving cars higgledy-piggledy, awkwardly blocking the streets, he finally found somewhere he could leave the car. They strolled slowly into the main square, finally ending up at a café that served large salads and warm baguettes late into the afternoon. It was a toss-up between local wine and local beer as an accompaniment.

  
.oOo.  


Andy, having worked out that the information given in the _Rough Guide to Corsica_ as to which way to drive round the Cap Corse to avoid the peril of driving off a cliff was entirely the wrong way round, had driven to St Florent as soon as he felt he'd be safe to do so. Fortunately, the local cafés were still serving breakfast, albeit at the inflated price of €9 for a glass of orange juice, a couple of slightly stale pastries, and a small vat of coffee. It was probably worth the price for the coffee alone.

It wasn't really his kind of place, though: too much Albert Dock, not enough Bootle Docks. He set off to drive round the Cap Corse, with the intention of arriving at Macinaghju, where he'd read there were several good small and cheap fish restaurants, in time for lunch.

On the way, he stopped off at Nonza, to light a candle to Sainte Julie, and to stare down at the asbestos-contaminated beach, victim of another hare-brained Corsican get-rich-quick scheme. Naïvely he hoped that lessons might have been learned, that this kind of folly might be past, but realistically he was grimly aware that in grinding poverty people would grasp at any faint straw for improvement.

It was all breath-taking, though. The views were spectacular, the drive hair-raising. It took a long time to drive 40 kilometres, but there was an awful lot to look at. Everything he saw made him think that maybe he could make more of a difference here than he ever could back in the UK. There were more people in need of help — half the island's youngsters heading to the mainland due to the lack of jobs, of opportunities, of homes in Corsica — and so much more he could actually _do_ to help. It was like rewinding the clock: it was a place where Thatcherism had never happened; where even Vat II was regarded through suspicious eyes and where Masses had never ceased being conducted in Latin in many places.

Lunch was shellfish, and fish, and wine, outside by the perfect tiny harbour. Andy even wondered whether buying a little fishing boat and pottering around would be a good plan. Maybe for a little while, at least, while he worked out what he could actually constructively do to help the islanders improve their lot.

Afterwards, as he headed back to Bastia, he stopped at a little inlet cove for a quiet swim. Two kilometres of fighting salty waves in a clear turquoise sea later he felt pummelled and massaged enough to return to Bastia.

There was still time enough before dinner for further exploration, and he headed up into the more ancient part of the city that he'd spotted — up a narrow cobbled path from the little fishing harbour — the previous evening whilst he was getting quietly hammered. There was an impromptu jazz concert taking place on the quay, and its strains wafted all the way up into the ancient Citadelle, past the falling down buildings with half the bricks missing that in England would be declared slums and demolished, but in Mediterranean Europe were deemed characterful and attracted some of the highest prices due to their prime location and historical value.

  
.oOo.  


"I don't like this," said Ed suddenly, after having been apparently contentedly eating. "What?" Yvette was still concentrating on her _salade corse_.

Ed, however, was facing into the square where a balaclava-clad bunch of people had assembled over the previous five minutes.

"Over there," he gestured vaguely, determinedly unwilling to draw attention to them, whilst almost simultaneously catching the eye of the waiter and summoning the bill. He paid, hastily, with a tip well over the going rate, before pulling a protesting Yvette back to the car as quickly as he could manage.

Safely cocooned in their well-appointed room in the hotel up the hill, he let Yvette nap while he worried about Andy. The lack of a clear winner in the first round of the presidential election — and the elimination of the candidate that should to their mind have been in the run-off with Sarkozy — had, he feared, brought all the most vehement and potentially violent Corsican nationalist malcontents out of the woodwork. Whilst nature might abhor a vacuum, uncertainty leads to unpredictable hatred and opportunities for random action. Or, as he most feared in this instance, direct action.

Scrabbling through the pockets of Yvette's discarded jacket, he found the crumpled list of hotels the airport's tourist information agency had given her. Grimly, he picked up the phone and worked his way methodically through the list, voice hushed to avoid waking or disturbing Yvette.

The first three hotels on the list, frustratingly, knew that they ought not to give out that sort of information. The fourth, however, was just disorganised. Looking up the location on Google Maps, he recognised, not without a certain sinking feeling, that that was _exactly_ the kind of place that Andy would have picked. The kind of place where he could mingle easily with the local people with grievances to find out exactly what was wrong in this island. And, more pertinently, what he might possibly be able to do to help. St Andy to the rescue, as per fucking usual.

As the evening drew on, Ed sat somewhat impatiently on his hands — to stop himself punching a hole in the wall and giving the British Labour Party a bad reputation in Corsica, although he had no doubt that Andy had probably already managed that one far better than he ever could — waiting for Yvette to wake up. 

Eventually she did. Ed rang through to reception and got them to order a taxi to the shore. 

"What for?" said Yvette groggily.

"We need to find Andy. Tonight."

"Why? And couldn't we drive?"

"Why? And couldn't we drive?"

"We _could_ ," sighed Ed. "But I have the feeling we'll both be needing a few drinks and the drink-drive laws are even stricter here in France.

"And as for _why_ , I just want to see him, keep him out of mischief if necessary. I think I know where he's staying, and knowing him he'll probably manage to get himself into a rumble with someone."

"Why don't you just call his mobile?"

"Switched off. Skinflint won't pay the overseas roaming rates, remember?"

Yvette did. She sighed. So much for a relaxing holiday by the Med.

  
.oOo.  


'Skinflint' Andy, having lit a candle in the Cathedral in the Citadelle and spent a good hour or more moseying around, had descended back to the little harbour and into a lively bar where discussion was already animated. He ordered a pint of _Pietra_ , and settled himself into a corner from which viewpoint he could observe everyone else. There was a slight pang of regret that Ed was not here with him to enjoy the beer and to banter with him, but on the whole he was still glad to be on his own. Things were clarifying in his own mind, and he knew that the best way of resolving all the _things_ that were wrong would be to email Yvette, the more sensible of the pair, that very night.

Once that was done, he was sure that he would have more chance fully to immerse himself in the experiences of the following morning. It was hardly something to which he was looking forward, but it was definitely something where he would need to be fully present in the moment, rather than being distracted by the detritus left over from failed relationships.

Finishing his half-litre, he made his way back to _Chez Mémé_ for a repeat performance of the previous evening's meal. He could have tried somewhere else, but why take the chance when Thursday's dinner had been so great? He was greeted like a long-lost regular, and chose this evening to sit inside, away from the port's to-ings and fro-ings. There would be enough excitement at the Mass and then, later, at Furiani itself. Tonight was for relaxation, and for finding the most tactful words to explain to Yvette, in a way that wouldn't make Ed go round hitting things in a blind incoherent rage if he insisted on reading over her shoulder rather than allowing her to gloss it.

.oOo.  


It was hours later, huddled on the saggy bed, that Andy finally put pen to paper — or, more accurately, fingers to keyboard. It was time to move on, he _knew_ it was — they weren't in the first flush of youth any more, despite what the red-tops might say about school-kids running the country — and he wanted a relationship where he didn't end up perpetually feeling as if he were the spare wheel.

He was pleasantly buzzed, but he wasn't going to allow that to inhibit him. If he didn't do it now, he wasn't sure that he would ever again manage to muster up the courage to do it.

He'd picked up a bottle of _Castagna_ in a _Casino_ supermarket earlier — again with the intention of discovering the best of what Corsica might have to offer — and poured himself a large glass in the flimsy plastic tooth mug supplied by the hotel. He took a sip, and was surprised. Ed would have laughed at him, called him a girl, for enjoying something so sweet; but it left a pleasant burn down the back of his throat.

He sighed, focussing on his task. Best to keep it short and to the point for now. Dissection could come later, along with his resignation letter if the weekend carrying on going the way it seemed to be doing.

`Yvette,`

`Hope you're sitting down when you read this, lass. Might be best to pour yourself a glass of something. I've needed a couple to get up the courage to write this.`

`I think you've noticed — although Ed won't have — that things haven't exactly been working lately. I listened to what you said back at the end of March, and I've been thinking things over since then.`

`You were right. I haven't been being fair on you. I'd hoped you'd both realised coming into this that there'd be times when my loyalties would be divided, and that my 'causes' would inevitably take top priority. I thought we were all singing from the same socialist hymn sheet, as it were.`

`I'm not going to change — not in that way, at any rate. But all this soul-searching has left me thinking that maybe politics isn't the best way to expedite change. Not for me, at any rate.`

`I haven't decided everything yet, but I have decided some things. I'm probably going to resign my seat. I probably won't be coming back to the UK. So it'd be unfair of me to do anything other than say that it's over between the three of us. It was great while it worked, and good while it lasted, but now it's time to move on.`

`I wish you both the best of luck and hope that, in time, you might come to think at least vaguely fondly of me again.`

`Andy.`

Andy's index finger hovered over the 'send' button even as he sighed, thinking that it didn't say the half of what he would like it to say. It wasn't tactful. It wasn't well-written. It wasn't even an explanation, or half-way grateful enough for all that Ed and Yvette had been to him. But it was the best he could do. He was drained, and he needed to keep something in his emotional reserve tank for the undoubtedly harrowing events that the morrow would bring.

He drank down another good swig of the _Castagna_ , then buried his head in the _oreiller_ , in the rather futile hope that it would both absorb the threatening tears and cocoon him away from the world until the following morning.

  
.oOo.  


Ed was cross. To be more accurate, by this point Ed was _livid_. Four hours of storming around, punctuated only by Yvette's insistence that they stop for dinner at a small tavern called _U Fornu_.

"Fuck, what is this?"

« _Terrinu di merlu?_ » enquired the waiter, all Andy-esque eyelashes and innocent expression, which hardly helped matters. "I believe," he drawled, in heavily-accented English, "you might call this songbird paté."

It didn't matter how much Yvette said 'blackbird', the zoologically-indoctrinated Ed thought 'melanistic thrush'.

"Fuck," he said, spitting out the mouthful he was currently engaged in chewing, and pushing the plate away in horror, "what the hell kind of barbarian backwater has that Scouse twat dragged us to?"

The second course fared little better.

"Call this lasagne?" he said scornfully, prodding at yet another piece of courgette. "I could have made better than this when I was five. Can't find anything meaty in it."

Yvette refrained, for the sake of peace, from commenting that he'd actually managed to order the vegetarian option. She deboned her fish with consummate grace, and pretended she was dining alone.

"And what's this?" he demanded, prodding doubtfully at a portion of _brocciu_ with fig jam.

Living with a would-be gourmet chef was a trial, she decided. But living with a moody Scouser-gone-AWOL wasn't exactly a major improvement. And still they hadn't found Andy. Unaccountably the hotel Ed had declared a sure-fire lead had been _closed_ when they'd turned up to bang on its door. And they hadn't managed to locate Andy in any of the bars or cafés either.

Yvette would just loved to have drenched herself in the overwhelming foreign-ness, yet working-class-ness, of the place but Ed was in such an unquestionably vile mood that she was permanently on edge, looking for ways to placate him before he made a scene. 

Eventually, with bad grace, he put down his cutlery.

Hastily, Yvette summoned the waiter over, made the universal scribbling notion to signify the wish for the bill, and asked in long-forgotten schoolgirl French, «Est-ce qu'il est possible d'avoir un taxi?» 

The response was too rapid and too accented for her to comprehend, but she guessed from long experience of ordering taxis in one place or another what he might be asking.

«Best Western?» She shrugged her shoulders disarmingly, but apparently that would suffice.

Once the taxi arrived, she and the twinkling waiter, between them, bundled a grumbling Ed into it. Back at the hotel, he stormed straight back to the room, whilst she lingered in the bar area of the reception and finally succeeded in orderng the most expensive bottle of bubbly on the menu from the somewhat lackadaisical barman. 

It was the only thing she could think of, short of producing Andy out of an imaginary hat which she didn't possess, of relaxing Ed sufficiently that _either_ of them would get any sleep. And while she could permit herself the luxury of a lie-in before a lazy day finally seeing bits of Corsica's incomparable coastline, Ed would have to be up fairly early to get one of the two trains of the morning to Furiani. Tossing and turning just wouldn't cut the mustard.

Balancing the tray awkwardly on one hand, she fumbled with her key-card, only for Ed to open the door in her face, almost causing her to stumble forward and break the lot in some kind of cartoon comedy scenario.

"What the —" said Ed, forehead furrowed, before realising that it was just Yvette trying to relax him and not someone intent on disturbing his night with obsequious and unnecessary room service.

He smiled, and took the tray from her hands, before expertly untwisting the wires on the bottle and easing the cork out ever so gently, so that there was but a mild pop and a lick of escaped carbonation.

"Yvette, as ever ... you are just perfect," he said, with a slightly less stressed smile, as he handed one of the glasses to her.

She did, occasionally, wonder whether maybe she oughtn't to apply to the UN for the rôle of Peacemaker General. It would surely be easy to reconcile Israel and Palestine after dealing with Ed and Andy. But then maybe any _kindergarten_ teacher might be equally qualified.

Rather than saying any of that, however, she accepted the glass and smiled happily, before placing a kiss on Ed's lips.

"He'll be OK. He always is."

Ed pulled back slightly, looking at her intently. "Do you really believe that?"

She shrugged. "I have to. We can't do anything. What's the point in worrying now?"

He didn't reply, just went back to his phone to check his email obsessively.

"Bet there's no WiFi connexion where he is," he eventually said pensively, looking up at her.

"All the better," she said crisply, a wolfish smile creasing her face, "for me to seduce you with."

Dropping back into her normal self, she added, "You'll have all day tomorrow with him. Tonight you're mine."

"Mmmmph," replied Ed through her kiss. Maybe for once he could take his mind off overdrive.

Yvette's tablet lay neglected in her carry-on luggage. This was a work-free zone, after all.

Kisses morphed into feeding each other champagne, and entwined limbs, and eventual exhaustion. For once Yvette was grateful for loud snores, as it meant at least that Ed was sleeping rather than fretting. She lay awake late into the night hoping, though, before eventually drifting off.

  
**_5 May 2012_ **   


Andy hadn't slept well. The heat, the noise, the alcohol, the mosquitos, the worry — all had combined to keep him biting his lip all night while refreshing his mail to see whether Yvette had replied.

By the time he needed to leave, she still hadn't. Casting a final despairing look at his laptop as he left it to charge, he departed, disarming the new young receptionist with a flirtatious Liverpudlian shrug as he left — his infamous fluttering eyelashes cutting no ice here. He ate a perfunctory breakfast in the main square — crossing his fingers that the Mass wouldn't be so short that he'd fail to observe an hour's fast before he had to take Communion — and made his way towards the church.

Suddenly uncertain, he wondered whether he might not, in fact, be seen to be intruding on a private grief. But _Hillsborough_ wasn't even his battle to fight, and mostly — _mostly_ — people had accepted his sincere support. He hoped it would be the same here. He made his way to the Église Ste Marie, entering and stopping briefly to light a candle, before taking up an inobtrusive position towards the back of the church.

  
.oOo.  


It wasn't in the least what he was expecting. Le Père Ghisoni took it all more seriously, more mystically, than he was used to. It was all _Missa de Angelis_ and meaningful silences that God was permitted to inhabit. It wasn't rushed; there was nothing perfunctory and hastily-managed about this service. Communion _in ora_ was the general norm.

It was quiet, it was respectful, it was a service for the dead. And it worked. If Andy had ever doubted God as he'd claimed occasionally — to sound less uncool — then this was a place where God could not be doubted.

He left the church almost floating on a cloud, which was hardly what he'd expected on walking in. He felt like he'd been renewed through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Fortified. Maybe now he could survive the rest of the day without crying.

He made his way back to the hotel to collect his car, and to put on his Everton kit — unsuitable for Mass as it was — topped off with the SC Bastia scarf. He felt slightly self-conscious, but not so much as to abandon his plans. He resisted the urge to check his email once more: the die was cast and what would happen would happen. Now wasn't the time to think about that though. For once, he felt strong. Invincible, almost.

It would have been nice to travel on a train full of fellow mourners, but the second train had already left and there wouldn't be another one until late that afternoon. Had this been England, a special train would no doubt have been laid on, or at least a coach or ten. There was a lot here that would be run differently were Andy to find himself in charge. And he might, he mused, he really could see that working. He was more energised than he had been for — oh! — perhaps longer than he could even remember.

Arriving in Furiani, he found somewhere to park, haphazardly.

He wasn't aware quite how nervous, how awkward, he felt until he was actually amongst the thronging masses all dressed in blue and white with the _Tête de Maure_ stamped proudly dead-centre on their shirts. Somehow the Everton kit looked suddenly shabby, old-fashioned, quintessentially _English_.

Walking up into the new Tribune Claude Papi, he crossed himself, as did everyone else. It didn't feel enough. Nothing could ever be enough. But Mass had given him a strength that meant he could cope. Would cope.

On impulse, he took out a scrap of paper and a pen — no ink, infuriatingly — and found a half-broken IKEA pencil and scrawled, "Ed, I've bottled it every bloody time, but I love you." He kissed it, before tucking it into the waistband of his shorts, knowing full-well that he'd chuck away this over-sentimental rubbish the next time he passed a dustbin.

  
.oOo.  


Ed was cursing, his default state these days. He'd missed the first train by a matter of seconds — he'd under-estimated the distance to the station and over-estimated his own fitness — and now the second train was late. Very late. Delayed on the way from Ajaccio, apparently by _un chèvre_ on the loose in a tunnel. Quite what a cheese might manage to do to delay a train, Ed had no idea, but there he was. There wasn't anything to hit, and nothing to do, and the drinks machine was broken too.

It was an exercise in minute frustration with every second become an hour. All he wanted to do was be with Andy, to make things right. And today was the day to do it, he felt it in his bones.

  
.oOo.  


The nationalist sniper halted, paused for a few seconds, and sought a target. He scanned the serried ranks, looking for someone, _anyone_ , who might stand out. It didn't matter who, why, what, when, or where. He just needed something to focus on.

His eyes, blinkered by the balaclava, narrowed. One blue shirt looked dull, faded, compared to the rest. He adjusted the sights and fired. A red dot blossomed on the target's forehead, mouth a perfect 'O' as he fell gently, in slow motion, backwards into the stand.

  
.oOo.  


Afterwards, Yvette could never say what caused her to stop before leaving the hotel to draw out her tablet and read her email. It stopped her in her tracks, the message from Andy. It didn't seem to be from _their_ Andy; it seemed to be from someone who had already mourned the death of their relationship and had now put away his widower's weeds and was ready to move on.

She collapsed, winded, onto the bed. She wanted to call Ed, but didn't think it would help. Out of the sheer need for distraction she clicked the TV off standby, where a hysterical reporter was gabbling on and on over poorly-focussed shots of the Stade Armand Césari.

Slowly she focussed. Someone had been shot, she just about managed to gather. Her heart contracted with fear. Resolution not to contact Ed forgotten, she called him.

"Yes? Bloody hell, the train's _still_ not here. Could you come and pick me up and take me?"

One alive, then. "I think the ceremony's off. I think something's happened," she said shakily.

"What? What's happened? Is Andy OK?"

"I don't know. I don't know _anything_. It's all too hysterical. Whatever it is, it's bad, it wouldn't be all over the news if it wasn't."

"We'd better get down there right now, then." She had a sudden mental picture of Ed rolling up his sleeves preparing to get dug in, before his voice tinged into anger. "What kind of fucker disrupts a memorial service?"

"I'm coming," was all she could say to comfort him. It wasn't good enough, she was sure.

Five scant minutes later she drew up at the station, brakes screeching, uncaring whether it was permitted to park right there right then. She was met by a frantic-eyed Ed, whom she drew into what was possibly the most fervent kiss of their married life, before leaping back into the car and heading the few kilometres south.

  
.oOo.  


The Stade Armand Césari was in turmoil by the time they made it there. It wasn't so much the shooting — most of them probably sympathised with the nationalist cause deep down — but the sense of desecration, the sense of destroying something that mattered to so many. Ed's coarse question of a few minutes earlier was on everyone's lips, in an entire Babel of languages.

There was only the one casualty, apparently, taken out on a stretcher-cum-shroud and rushed away with screeching sirens to the hospital in central Bastia.

"I have to know," raged Ed impotently, swivel-eyed. Yvette wanted to counsel patience, but she knew it would not be well received. What were the odds? One in 10000? 20000? Who knew?

She'd have given anything at that moment to have got a laughing voicemail from Andy saying he was on the Riviera with his new boyfriend — or girlfriend, she supposed, but couldn't quite see it, not after Ed — and hadn't he got them fooled.

It didn't come. No Andy emerged from the stadium either. Maybe no news might be good news. At the least, it wasn't the very worst news.

  
.oOo.  


The very worst news did come, though, a few hours later — a few hours during which Yvette had had to watch Ed almost gnaw through his own wrist tendons. Amateur footage uploaded to YouTube had told them almost all they needed to know, but not the outcome: official news channels were still being extremely tight-lipped about that. They'd rushed to the Centre Hospitalier Général as soon as they'd seen it with their own eyes.

«Nous sommes vraiment désolés,» announced a young man, fatigue glazing his Andy-esque eyes. He really did appear truly desolate, which Yvette imagined must get extremely exhausting after a while. _Andy would have known_ , she thought distractedly. «Nous avons fait tous ...», his voice trailing off as he noticed the mostly-psychotic look in Ed's eyes and the pulsing of the blood vessels in his forehead. One dead British Hollande sympathiser was enough: he didn't need two on his hands in one day.

It was Yvette that identified Andy in the morgue; Yvette who collected his effects; Yvette that had to take a mute-struck Ed back to the hotel. Yvette who had to make sure he ate; Yvette who made sure he took the sedatives the doctor had prescribed for both of them. And she the one with the possibility of a never-anticipatable ME relapse.

As Ed sank, finally, into a benzodiazepine-induced sleep, she steeled herself to open the bag. All that was left of Andy, save the cold body to be reduced to ashes to be scattered at Goodison Park.

His clothes had been cut off him in the frantic attempt to save him. All that remained was his passport, his wallet, his keys, his phone, and a few pathetic euros in small change. And a crumpled blood-stained note.

It was the note that undid her finally. If only Ed could have known ...

_She bit her lip whilst glancing uncertainly at his slumbering form. No, best he didn't. It would only make the grief and loss ten times as hard._

... better, also, that Ed never knew any of the maelstrom of emotions she'd had to go through in twelve short hours.

Hollande swept into the Élysée after the following day's election, the socialist vote boosted by an overarching sense of outrage throughout France, and a strong anti-nationalist sentiment. Corsica could do nothing but hang her head in shame and hope not to be expelled ignominiously from the Republic. It was, however, a bittersweet victory for all socialists everywhere. 

At least nobody tried to blame Yvan Colonna for _this_ shooting. But no doubt some other illiterate peasant farmer who couldn't possibly have planned something of this magnitude would end up getting the blame.

  
**_16 May 2012_ **   


Andy's Requiem Mass in Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral was a sombre affair. The Cathedral was packed with Labour politicians — and even some from other parties — cheek-by-jowl with friends and family and doctors and football fans from both Liverpool and Everton, and many other less identifiable people. Andy had been genuinely _liked_ , which made his early demise so much the more tragic.

It wasn't what Ed had expected, being used to the Anglican tradition as he was, but the pattern of the service was mostly familiar. He hadn't counted on the coffin, with Andy's Everton and SC Bastia scarves artfully intertwined amidst the floral tributes, being placed up close and central on a bier as the focal point of the service. He tried to swallow the lump that came into his throat, and looked rather frantically at Yvette, squeezing her hand. She squeezed back, hoping that soon the anti-depressants and mood stabilisers might kick in.

It was terrible for all of them. Andy, not having expected to die at 42 from a sniper's bullet, had not got around to producing an explicit declaration of what music or readings he might wish for at his funeral. In the absence of any direction from anyone else, Ed had decided to go with Byrd's four-part, a decision he regretted rather when they came to the _Agnus Dei_ which wrecked him even when just listening to it on a CD, rather than hearing it in its full liturgical context, and referring to his beloved Andy. The hymn tunes, equally, were hard to bear: _COE FEN, ST PATRICK'S BREASTPLATE, VICTORY_ and _SLANE_. All stirring, all hard to cope with, but even then he knew the worst was still to come.

Ed, finally, broke down completely during the Communion anthem of Fauré's _Cantique de Jean Racine_. Not being able to take communion at his lover's Requiem Mass brought home to him all the broken differences of the Christian church, of the world, of all of what Andy would have described as 'fallen humanity'.

In death, Andy was washed clean of all his annoying faults; and Ed regretted every careless annoyance, every harsh word, and in particular the stupid, _stupid_ argument over the trip to Bastia.

Ed barely heard the final hymn, sung to the strains of _GOODISON PARK_ , so hard was he crying.

It was worse yet at the crematorium, where the committal was swift and stilted, before the coffin was carried away on a rather jerky conveyor belt whilst, as the curtains closed, "You'll Never Walk Alone" rang out from a CD, with sobbing half-strangulated mourners joining a raggle-taggle somewhat tuneless chorus.

  
**_August 2012_ **   


"Ed?" He didn't respond, so she pulled the duvet off him.

"Oi! I was trying to sleep!"

"No." She stared at him, and he quailed. "You were trying to hide."

"What of it? Leave me alone."

"You're going to have to deal with this eventually."

"Why? He's dead. He _tragically died, Jeremy_ ", — sarcastic air-quotes included — "and this was a _real_ tragedy, unlike a heart attack."

"They offered you counselling."

"Like putting a fucking bandaid on an amputated limb!"

"You've got to learn to live again," she tried patiently.

" _Without_ him, what's the point of living?" A parody of an awful song, but at least it suggested that there might be something other than depression, some last spark of humour, lurking within Ed's brain. 

She didn't take it to heart. She'd learned not to take it to heart. She was the custodian of those secrets never to be revealed: she was the one who knew that Andy had had no intention of coming back to them; she was the one who knew that in his last seconds Andy had declared his love for Ed with a stubby pencil on a scrap of paper. None of this would help — none of this could _ever_ help — Ed.

God save her, those were secrets she'd take with her to the grave and to Hell if need be. It was her way of keeping Andy's crusading spirit alive.

For Ed, dealing with his attraction to men — _one man_ , as he'd always fervently sworn — was one matter. Dealing with his semi-closeted mourning (half the country knew why he'd resigned as Shadow Chancellor in Yvette's favour) was another. She wished he'd bloody talk about it.

  
.oOo.  


But, every day for the rest of his — rather truncated — life Ed Balls woke up and cursed the day that Napoléon Bonaparte had been born. He never came out (without Andy by his side what would have been the point? It was always, had always been, Andy. And Andy had been pretty enough that it had been almost OK. Or so he'd rationalised it; a Jesuistic casuistry of which Andy would have been proud). Andy. In the final analysis, it all came back to Andy.

Internally, emotionally, he had become an arid wasteland the second that Andy's death had been confirmed. Andy had always been that naïve springbok of hope, that beacon of light and righteousness. Without him, it was all, always, shades of grey. And, increasingly, the darker shades of grey.

But then there was every Hillsborough anniversary, at Anfield, till he died. He didn't ever _get_ Scousers — you have to be born and bred Liverpudlian truly to get it — but it was ever so the yearly reminder of Andy, and people hugged him, and it was _something_. It was connexion. It was remembrance. It was a day when mourning was permitted, even if what he was mourning wasn't really the 96 but their tireless champion.

Liverpool and Everton had finally buried their century-old feud in deference to Andy's ecumenical efforts, and in their shared repeated mourning. 'The Anfield Martyr' might not quite have been his preferred title, but so it went. In many ways, it was very fitting.

Two weeks later, every year, was always a bed day. Always, always, May the bloody 5th. _Diu vi Salvi Regina_ crossed with _that_ Gerry and the Pacemakers hit would always haunt his dreams. Always.

  
**_8 May 2015_ **   


Yvette wasn't remotely surprised, although the manner of his death was. She'd feared suicide for so long that 'his heart just gave out' came as something of a relief. His heart had never quite been large enough to be Andy's legacy as well as fighting for everything they'd all always believed in, though, much as he'd strived to make it so.

Both her boys, dead before they reached fifty. 

First female Labour leader — first female Labour Prime Minister — she had always just to pick herself up and carry on. It was, after all, what they would both have wanted. Always remembered, never forgotten. It was something to tether her to reality as the euphoria of walking into Number Ten after having accepted the Queen's call to appoint a Government threatened to eclipse everything else. She'd have given it all up in a heartbeat, just to have Ed and Andy back.

She'd have made them proud. _Diu vi Salvi Regina_ : the third anniversary had been just three days earlier. YNWA; but now she would have to. She was their longed-for future, as well as the archivist of their past.


End file.
